Both consumers and businesses are acquiring an increasingly diverse array of computers and digital output devices. These devices offer options for displaying content in ways that were only dreamed of a decade or two ago. For example, you can read e-mails on your computer at work, your PDA, or your mobile phone. Content can also be broadcast on oversized plasma screens in corporate conference rooms and classrooms, LED displays in lobbies, LCD panels at trade shows, TVs in waiting rooms, or scrolling ticker tapes over entryways, to name just a few options. While the increased versatility offers great diversity in communicating both text-based and image-based content, problems arise with how readily the content can conform to output devices of varying sizes and/or aspect ratios. Some display formats may be horizontally oriented (as in a computer monitor or TV monitor); others may be vertically oriented (as in a PDA or mobile phone).
In the print world, designers and other users work with a fixed page or canvas size. They decide what elements will compose a page and where those elements should be located based on their knowledge of the page size. Current technologies are limited in their ability to define page content so that it will reflow suitably when the page size of the output display is dynamic or is unknown. Furthermore, when a user desires for content to be rendered on multiple devices, problems arise. One of two things may happen: 1) the user must change the page content or layout to suit multiple target output devices, or 2) the user can rely on existing page reflow technology to resize the page content appropriately. In the latter case, images or content may “jump” to different lines or locations. Columns or pages of content can be split. Size and/or position of content can be changed or compromised.